BY Christian Palino

Do Co Mo, No Mo’

After establishing a Corporate Branding Division last year, Japan’s 53-million-customer NTT DoCoMo is undergoing a major re-branding that will be rolled out July 1st — the cornerstone of which is their new logo. DoCoMo’s company name, previously divided in three syllables and now united as one word, comes from the word dokomo, meaning “everywhere”, and is an abbreviation of the phrase, “Do Communications Over the Mobile Network.”

Their recent press release states:

“The new logo’s color is red, which symbolizes the company’s energy and dynamism. The logo, along with other branding elements, embodies DoCoMo’s commitment to achieve customer satisfaction by understanding the needs of customers and building stronger relationships with them, and to maximize the creativity of the company’s workforce and remain a leading innovator in the mobile communications industry.”

The previous logo, with its broken up camelCase and tri-colored graphic swirlyness, was always a bit noisy and disjointed. The spacing between syllables more jarring than solidifying and articulate. However the new logo is refreshingly restrained, well balanced and concise. Even the puckered up “d” kind of works alongside the other geometric forms. Through removing some of the flair and frenetic energy of the previous, this new simplified wordmark manages to call more attention to their name and reflect their grown-up, parental position in the marketplace. While some may claim that this mark is dull and uninventive, it takes a fair bit of foresight to retain a cool, timeless hand in this time of shiny 2.0 trends.

You can visit their press release here and a range of images from their FOMA line and others. And, as Tony Spaeth reports, there is no disclosure of who was in charge of the design.